In addition to producing an array of beers brewed with staggering
quality, the American craft beer revolution has endorsed a sense of “the local”
as well, with competent beers appearing in the tasting rooms or articulated
pubs of great micro-breweries across the country—in cities large and towns small. Some of these beers are
world-beaters, to be sure, but not all of them travel in bottle or keg outside
the locality. When compiling a list of top examples, therefore, one must consider
the brews that others can reasonably locate at their tap-houses or beer stores.
Below follows just such a list. You can probably tell that I am partial to dark
beer, having tasted, conservatively, upwards of 1,000 stouts and porters in the
past few years. I have swilled all over the country, from Boston to
Chattanooga, from Chicago to San Diego, from Washington, D.C. to Seattle,
Washington, sampling, along the way, many stouts and porters unavailable
nationally. Some of these local dark beers have been special, including, let’s
say, Port Brewing Company’s A.B.L.E. Stout in Ocean Beach, an American double
at 8.20% that may not be brewed again, and will never travel. The A.B.L.E.
stout reminded me of Founders Breakfast Stout, a major beer that is available
in most areas. The Founders beer and all other stouts do offer nutritive
benefits (antioxidants, to name one) when consumed in moderation. The key
thing, when sampling such a fine beverage, is to effect moderation. But I
digress. Let me get to the list, which I have broken into three divisions,
according to alcohol by volume, or ABV. The first category I will deem “Sessionable
Stout”, with ABV not to exceed 6.50%. I will name the second category “Mid-Range
Stout”, with ABV between 6.51% and 8.99%, and the third category “Imperial
Stout”—for ABV values that soar above 9.00%. You can thank Catherine the Great (love that
gal!) for imperials, as she commissioned the production of the very first one,
a stout that would endure the snowy journey from England to Mother Russia
without freezing en route. This list (“Warning!”) may be controversial to some.
For one, I have organized it primarily by alcohol content, not necessarily by style. I have also determined
my own ABV divisions. The list, moreover, does not include stouts and porters
from abroad, not even from Mother Canada. The list does not attempt to
establish these beers as the ultimate tops in their categories, but as “five of
the tops”, even though these beers may be the very five tops after all. Click here if you need any instruction on how to imbibe a dark brew. Otherwise: to
the pub! Comments welcome!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

For the sake of Brevity, let us define Science as both
Military and Climate. A belief in the routines of synthesizing Modern Weaponry,
for example, would obligate you to believe in Global Warming. You couldn’t
believe in one part of Science, that is, without believing in all parts of
Science, and in any event, for the sake of Brevity, we are offering a definition
that equates, say, the Fundamental Routines required to conceive of Ordnance
and Trajectory with the Fundamental Routines required to measure the levels of
Greenhouse Gasses. Interestingly enough, the increased administration of Modern
Weaponry will probably lead to the progression of Global Warming, and the
progression of Global Warming will probably lead to the increased
administration of Modern Weaponry. The scene shifts to a mountaintop in Hawai’i, where the
measurement of Carbon in Parts Per Million surpasses reasonable levels. The polluted
air—steeply—warms the earth yet you deny the Science. “This is natural,” you
may assert or “Mono-Deity intends for this to happen” or “Scientists Are Engaging
in a Conspiracy to Falsify Their Findings” even as drastic consequences loom
and the fossilized, ice-core history of the Earth hasn’t indicated such disastrous
levels of Parts Per Million in Millions of Years. Science, of course, builds
cartridges, magazines, firearms, torque, detonations, submarines, jump jets,
nerve agents, mushroom clouds, satellite guidance, and all sorts of sundry
materiel. This is “Natural?” this is Mono-Deity? In one half of our basic
two-part system, Science warns of Great Harm, and in the other half, Science
produces Great Harm. You reject the former but not the latter. It must be nice
to entitle yourselves to these types of inconsistencies. The scene shifts to
man-made structures—rails, overpasses, domiciles, high-rises, signals, gutters,
power plants, wiring, cathedrals, off ramps—that are, desperately, perpetually,
attempting to crumble or combust. The scene shifts to soil, there is a Drought
in the soil, the Drought rises toward the surface, through soil that is perpetually
striving to evaporate, and without some Immediate Attention, Skeptics, witness the
Dumb Animal in Collapse.

APPEARANCES WITH HETERODYNE IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC PROJECT

I have appeared several times (as “Words”) with the Heterodyne improvisational music project, which is led by Maria Shesiuk and Ted Zook. Other performers have included Sarah Hughes, Leah Gage, Doug Kallmeyer, Bob Boilen, Sam Lohman, Amanda Huron, and Patrick Whitehead. Here are three free sample recordings, each about 30 minutes long, available on Soundcloud: